You can’t please all of the people all of the time, but the Iron Horse Entertainment Group obviously comes close.

With two winners in the inaugural Reader Raves contest, the entertainment group demonstrates that its venues are a strong draw all across Western Massachusetts and beyond.

The storied Iron Horse Music Hall won for Best Live Music Venue, while the newest – but also oldest in some ways – member of the group, Mountain Park, took Best Outdoor Concert Venue.

“The (Reader) Raves are an honor, of course,” says Jim Neill, marketing director for the group. “The valley is a diverse and eclectic place and its always nice to get validation that we’re nailing it booking music and comedy of all stripes.”

Neither choice should come as a surprise to music fans. The Iron Horse has long been a favorite, bringing national acts to an intimate, 179-seat chapel of music. The venue has been around since 1979, when regional music impresario Jordy Herold opened it as a small coffeehouse only about a third of its current size. When the storefront adjacent to the Iron Horse became vacant about a decade later, Herold knocked down a wall, expanding the space to its current size.

In 1994, however, Herold decided to leave the music business and sold the Iron Horse to J. Craig Blaine and Jo Thomas, who had difficulty maintaining Herold’s success. The following year, the Iron Horse closed briefly, but in stepped Eric Suher, owner of ES Sports in Holyoke, who bought the business and revived it.

The rest, as they say is history – a history that includes Suher also saving Pearl Street nighclub, renovating and reviving the Calvin Theatre and, ultimately, purchasing the old Mountain Park amusement park.

“It’s great to see the Iron Horse show up because it’s our more intimate club and consistently reaching dozens of different tribes of under 200 people happens on a different scale than the Calvin and Mountain Park,” Neill said.

Mountain Park may be the newest kid on the Iron Horse entertainment block, but it’s also the biggest and becoming the most popular. With acts such as Bon Iver, the Decemberists, Bonnie Raitt and Fiona Apple taking the stage there, the park has clearly become a destination for larger national acts that can’t fit into the Calvin Theatre.

First established as a trolley park in 1895, it later became an amusement park that ran until 1987. In the following years the property deteriorated, but in 2006, Suher purchased it for $1.6 million. A few years later, it reopened as a music venue.

“The word is clearly getting out that Mountain Park is a delightful and welcoming place to see top name artists outdoors,” Neill said. “We all have to stay on top of what’s happening in music which is fun but also a full time job. We have our anchor artists that we can count on year after year but with newer acts the trends and tastes move more quickly than they used to.” 